5G plans just hit the accelerator

The international body crafting the 5G standard has approved an accelerated roadmap that could see large-scale trials and deployments in 2019 instead of 2020.At a meeting this week in Dubrovnik, Croatia, the 3GPP signed off on a 5G work plan that several top mobile operators and network vendors came out in favor of last week. It would create an interim 5G specification before the full-scale standard is completed.It’s important to get the next generation of mobile out into the world soon because users keep increasing their data consumption, said Lorenzo Casaccia, vice president of technical standards at Qualcomm, in a blog post on Thursday. That’s why his company is backing the in-between spec, which is now expected to be done by the end of this year and available in software about three months later.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

5G plans just hit the accelerator

The international body crafting the 5G standard has approved an accelerated roadmap that could see large-scale trials and deployments in 2019 instead of 2020.At a meeting this week in Dubrovnik, Croatia, the 3GPP signed off on a 5G work plan that several top mobile operators and network vendors came out in favor of last week. It would create an interim 5G specification before the full-scale standard is completed.It’s important to get the next generation of mobile out into the world soon because users keep increasing their data consumption, said Lorenzo Casaccia, vice president of technical standards at Qualcomm, in a blog post on Thursday. That’s why his company is backing the in-between spec, which is now expected to be done by the end of this year and available in software about three months later.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

How to use Ryzen Master, AMD’s powerful new CPU overclocking tool

The long-awaited Ryzen CPUs are finally here and AMD’s shiny new hardware arrived with helpful new software in tow.Following in the footsteps of the WattMan overclocking tool for Radeon graphics cards, the Ryzen Master overclocking tool is aimed at giving you complete control over your new Ryzen chip, allowing you to push your processor to the bleeding edge of its potential performance. Want to crank voltage higher, fiddle with clock speeds, monitor temperatures, or even completely disable some of your chip’s cores? AMD’s overclocking software enables all that and more.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Google tries to beat AWS at cloud security

Google knows that if enterprises are going to move their critical services to its cloud, then it has to offer something that AWS doesn’t. At Google Cloud Next, the company’s leadership made the case that Google Cloud was the most secure cloud.At the conference this week, Google unveiled tools that would let IT teams provide granular access to applications, better manage encryption keys, and enforce stronger authentication mechanisms for applications running on Google Cloud. While Google is just playing catch-up to Amazon with the Key Management System for GCP, it is stepping into uncharted territory with Data Leak Prevention API by giving administrators tools that go beyond the infrastructure to protect individual applications. Google is tackling the identity access management challenge differently from Amazon, and it will be up to enterprises to decide which approach they prefer.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Google tries to beat AWS at cloud security

Google knows that if enterprises are going to move their critical services to its cloud, then it has to offer something that AWS doesn’t. At Google Cloud Next, the company’s leadership made the case that Google Cloud was the most secure cloud.At the conference this week, Google unveiled tools that would let IT teams provide granular access to applications, better manage encryption keys, and enforce stronger authentication mechanisms for applications running on Google Cloud. While Google is just playing catch-up to Amazon with the Key Management System for GCP, it is stepping into uncharted territory with Data Leak Prevention API by giving administrators tools that go beyond the infrastructure to protect individual applications. Google is tackling the identity access management challenge differently from Amazon, and it will be up to enterprises to decide which approach they prefer.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Newer car tech opens doors to CIA attacks

The revelation through Wikileaks that the CIA has explored hacking vehicle computer control systems should concern consumers, particularly as more and more cars and trucks roll off assembly lines with autonomous features."I think it's a legitimate concern considering all of the computers being added to cars," said Kit Walsh, a staff attorney with the privacy group Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). "There's no reason the CIA or other intelligence agencies or bad actors couldn't use those vulnerabilities to hurt people.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Newer car tech opens doors to CIA attacks

The revelation through Wikileaks that the CIA has explored hacking vehicle computer control systems should concern consumers, particularly as more and more cars and trucks roll off assembly lines with autonomous features."I think it's a legitimate concern considering all of the computers being added to cars," said Kit Walsh, a staff attorney with the privacy group Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). "There's no reason the CIA or other intelligence agencies or bad actors couldn't use those vulnerabilities to hurt people.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Danes targeted by malware spread through Dropbox

Earlier this week, Danish-speaking users were hit by malware spread through Dropbox, but the company responded quickly to shut down the attack. According to a research report by AppRiver, the attack hit Denmark, Germany, and several surrounding Scandinavian countries on Wednesday morning. The attack was unusual in that it narrowly targeted a specific audience, said Troy Gill, security analyst at AppRiver. "Somehow, they found this language-based list of email addresses," he said. "I'm not sure where they gathered it."To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Danes targeted by malware spread through Dropbox

Earlier this week, Danish-speaking users were hit by malware spread through Dropbox, but the company responded quickly to shut down the attack. According to a research report by AppRiver, the attack hit Denmark, Germany, and several surrounding Scandinavian countries on Wednesday morning. The attack was unusual in that it narrowly targeted a specific audience, said Troy Gill, security analyst at AppRiver. "Somehow, they found this language-based list of email addresses," he said. "I'm not sure where they gathered it."To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Protecting the enterprise against mobile threats

Mobile devices have transformed the digital enterprise allowing employees to access the information they need to be most productive from virtually anywhere. Has that convenience come at a cost to enterprise security, though?  According to Forrester's The State of Enterprise Mobile Security: 2016 to 2017, by Chris Sherman, "Employees are going to continue to purchase and use whatever devices and apps they need to serve customers and be highly productive, whether or not these devices are company-sanctioned."To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Protecting the enterprise against mobile threats

Mobile devices have transformed the digital enterprise allowing employees to access the information they need to be most productive from virtually anywhere. Has that convenience come at a cost to enterprise security, though?  According to Forrester's The State of Enterprise Mobile Security: 2016 to 2017, by Chris Sherman, "Employees are going to continue to purchase and use whatever devices and apps they need to serve customers and be highly productive, whether or not these devices are company-sanctioned."To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

WikiLeaks will share CIA hacking details with companies, but can they use it?

WikiLeaks plans to share details about what it says are CIA hacking tools with the tech companies so that software fixes can be developed.But will software companies want it?The information WikiLeaks plans to share comes from 8,700-plus documents it says were stolen from an internal CIA server. If the data is classified -- and it almost certainly is -- possessing it would be a crime.That was underlined on Thursday by White House press secretary Sean Spicer, who advised tech vendors to consider the legal consequences of receiving documents from WikiLeaks.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

WikiLeaks will share CIA hacking details with companies, but can they use it?

WikiLeaks plans to share details about what it says are CIA hacking tools with the tech companies so that software fixes can be developed.But will software companies want it?The information WikiLeaks plans to share comes from 8,700-plus documents it says were stolen from an internal CIA server. If the data is classified -- and it almost certainly is -- possessing it would be a crime.That was underlined on Thursday by White House press secretary Sean Spicer, who advised tech vendors to consider the legal consequences of receiving documents from WikiLeaks.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

FBI: what to look for in the Trump/AlfaBank connection

As CNN reports, the FBI seems to be looking into that connection between Trump and Alfa Bank. Here are some things to look for.

First, get your own copy of the logs from root name servers. I don't trust the source of the original logs. I suspect they've been edited in order to show a relationship with Alfa Bank. You've got lots of sources both inside government and in private industry that can provide a copy of these logs without a warrant. (Which sucks, you should need a warrant, but that's the current state of affairs).

Second, look at the server in question. It's probably located at 140 Akron Road, Ephrata, PA. What you are looking for are the logs of anything sent from the server during that time, specifically any e-mails.

Third, talk to Cendyn, and ask them what that server was used for during that time. Their current statement is that it was used by the Metron meeting software. In other words, they say that after they stopped using it to send marketing emails, they started using it for their meeting product. They seem a little confused, so it'd be nice to pin them down. Specifically, get Continue reading

It’s official: Disaggregation is here to stay

When Cumulus Networks was first created, disaggregation was completely disruptive. Organizations of all shapes and sizes were running proprietary hardware and software through every single ounce of their data centers. We went into this industry excited to start something new and make networking faster, smarter, scalable and all-around better. We’re thrilled to report that a lot has changed since then.

This week, Arista announced that their operating system, Arista cEOS™, will support virtual machines, containers and third-party merchant silicon-based switches (ya know, like Cumulus Networks has been doing for quite some time now). This seems like a huge jump for Arista, who has been part of the proprietary school of thought from day one, but we’re honestly not surprised. This is an indicator of just how transformative open networking has been for the industry. It’s taking hold, sinking its teeth into tradition and tearing it apart (both literally and figuratively).

Here are a few other recent signifiers that disaggregation is here to stay:

  • Gartner’s recent data showing 30% growth in white-box switching shipments, driven by the flexibility and significant cost reductions network operators are achieving through software operating systems
  • Gartner reporting that by the year 2020, it is expected that over Continue reading

The Linux Migration: Other Users’ Stories, Part 3

Over the last few weeks, I’ve been sharing various users’ stories about their own personal migration to Linux. If you’ve not read them already, I encourage you to check out part 1 and part 2 of this multi-part series to get a feel for why folks are deciding to switch to Linux, the challenges they faced, and the benefits they’ve seen (so far). Obviously, Linux isn’t the right fit for everyone, but at least by sharing these stories you’ll get a better feel whether it’s a right fit for you.

This is Brian Hall’s story of switching to Linux.

Q: Why did you switch to Linux?

I’ve been an OS X user since 2010. It was a huge change coming from Windows, especially since the laptop I bought had the first SSD that I’ve had in my primary machine. I didn’t think it could get any better. Over the years that feeling started to wear off.

OS X started to feel bloated. It seemed like OS X started to get in my way more and more often. I ended up formatting and reinstalling OSX like I used to do with Windows (maybe not quite as often). Setting up Mail to Continue reading

The CIA should help vendors patch the flaws it was exploiting

The CIA exploits exposed this week reveal that the agency does hacking just like criminals do, including buying exploits from black-hat researchers who sell their wares on the dark web.It’s also a demonstration of bad security on the part of the CIA, which apparently entrusted the entire portfolio to both agency employees and contractors, one of whom turned out not to be trustworthy and passed them on to Wikileaks.A criminal investigation into who that was is underway so the CIA is rightfully busy with that, but it should try to find time to help out the vendors whose gear was exploited patch the flaws quickly. Before the leak, these attacks were not widely known. But now that they are, they have little value to the CIA anymore, so the CIA should help shore up the vulnerabilities.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

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